Letters Home from a Yankee Doughboy 1916-1919

Expect to leave any day now. Probably be in Boston before the 5th of Nov. Im feeling fine and Im going to remain in this condition until I get home.

Sam

Dear Lena,

I received your letter in which you stated that you had received the State money and no doubt you can use it to good advantage. I am going to be truthful and say that I spent a pretty tough night last night with my front teeth. You know I never had much bother with them and to have them go back on me down hear is kind of disagreeable. Im going to try and get down town today to have them fixed. Im not going to take any chances on these army dentists especially the work on these front teeth of mine. I suppose Ill get trimmed, but it will be worth it.

After a very cold and dissagreeable night we awoke this morning to hear that Georgia was due to start arriving tomorrow. You remmeber how strong I was for fresh air while sleeping. Well beleive me Im getting my stumack full of this fresh air stunt now. We have all gone back to undressing night and say it is some job and takes nerve to crawl out of our blankets in the morning and slide into cloths that are almost wet from the dampness that settles in to them over night. It isn’t doing us any harm though, don’t worry. Im feeling as fine as a fiddle. Every thing is going pretty smooth. See you soon.

Well the Second is home and the Fifth should be when you get this, and still we are here drilling just as though we were expecting nothing unusual to happen. All we do though is go out into the field for about two hours to get limbered up after a nights frost. Thirty minutes for exercise thirty for bayonet drill and sixty for close order drill constitutes the days work. It is sertainly tiresome waiting for these Georgia fellows. I suppose it is getting pretty cold in Boston now. I wonder if we will be home for Thanksgiving.

Sam

Dear Em, and the rest of you.

I am now First Sergeant of Co. K. which pleases me very much. The company clerk is making out the order now and my time will go on from tomorrow the 21st. The previous first serg. was elected the 18th and I guess the captain thought I was the man for I have jumped two sergeants that have been in the outfit longer than I have. It was some jump for the 1st sergeant to be elected 1st Leiut. and sertainly some jump for me, for if you will look back to the day we were in Framingham and see me as a corporal and now a First Sergeant of the same company you would think so.

I nead all the good luck and wishes you kind folks can give me for it is no snap to act as 1st serg. in a company of men that are almost on the point of desertion to go home. The boys seem to all be glad that I was the guy to get it but there is trouble ahead I know and I will have to face it even if I feel the same way the men do. I didn’t know that I would be sending a letter so soon but I wanted to let you know the good news, and I thought this, the best way to inform you.

I hear now that we are to leave Wed. 25 and I hope it is time. How does the dear old boys of the Fifth look. More strength to them. We are having evening parade every night now, and we should be pretty good at close order when we hit Boston, (God Bless the day) By the way I am fine, (of coarse you wouldn’t think so by the writing) but you know it is something new for me to be writing with a pen, and I know you will excuse me. I thought Id freeze last night, but never mind I only thought I would. A little setting up drill and we feel like lining up against Harvard or Yale’s foot ball teams.

Well I have nothing more to say and not much of that only we are going home tomorrow, but tomorrow nevernever comes. Hoping this finds you in the best of health, I am still the same

Im not going to say any thing more about going home. We just came in from 24 hours of out post and Im feeling fine. They are laying out drills for a week ahead so I guess they are going to try and take our mind off the subject that most consernse us. Two men (a serg. & corp.) left this morning for home their time having expired. They have given up the idea of waiting for us to move and I think they have taken a wise step. It is nice and cool in the day time now, but good and cold nights. The whole camp is like a grave yard. Some of the companies are getting very little disapline out of the men.

Well we are still waiting to leave. We havent done a tap since getting back from the hike, outside of packing up everything that is to be packed and stuff that we will not use. The Fifth is well on the way now, and we are still here not knowing just what day we are to follow. No doubt it will be next week some time. The trouble seems to be in the lack of cars. Ive eaten my finger nails all off waiting to go. We are well outfitted with cloths as follows. 5 suits of summer under wear, 2 suits of winter underwear, 3 o.d. shirts 3 pairs of shoes, ten pair of stockings two hats, 3 pair of summer cotton breaches, 2 suits of o.d.’s including blouse and pants. 1 sweater, 1 over coat, two blankets. 2 pairs of leggings 4 towels besides toilet and other articles. Outside of 1 suit of under wear on our backs and one in our pack. 1 shelter half, 1 ponchow 1 blanket, polls pins, sweater and toilet articles, everything that I have mentioned is to be put in a bag and shipped home. Some out fit, what?

You can see I have nothing to say when I will try to fill up a sheet of paper with this kind of junk. Im simply writing this any way to let you know that I am still waiting anxiously for my seat in the train to start on that long journey home. This army life is the same old stuff day after day and Im sorry I can’t gather some news to make up an interesting letter.

I received your letter and was sorry to hear that Henry is not feeling well. Just the opposite with me I tell you. Young Kinsman is in the hospital and has been ever since the next to last day on the hike. He was one of six in our company that had to fall out. It is real chilly here today and reminds me of a fall Saturday after noon, when I am home with all kinds of time on my hands but nothing to say. Katherine Holland sent me a letter which I received yesterday and Im going to answer it so if you will excuse this short and poor letter Ill close and start one to her.

It is raining like the devil now and the tent is leaking but I am going to write this letter even if the paper is all wet. I put in a very busy morning washing and getting ready to go home, and we may be on our way by the time you get this. We got back to Camp Cotton yesterday and believe me dear old Camp Cotton (that is the desert that we made into a camp) looked good. Say but we were a tired bunch when we struck here, for we must have made 14-15 miles in wet, heavy marching order. We had to walk (plough) through about five miles of deep sand. Now we are getting ready to (Go Home). Saturday is the expected day, and although it is only two day away, I suppose it will seem like a month. The Fifth leaves tomorrow. I guess Id be washing mending or some such thing now if it wasn’t raining. But somehow every time it rains I think of a nice dry place where it is comfortable, and the result is a letter (Home). A little of this life is all right but four months is pretty near enough for any sane man.

I have received quite a lot of cards and a letter from you and the rest and they did cheer me up a lot while on that indurance test (they called a practice march). We covered 84-85 miles in eight days, doing all our marching in the morning, between 8-9 to 11-12. First it was lack of water, then water that I couldn’t get by my throut, heat, rain, cold. All this was met and yet today we all laugh at it and say wasn’t that worth going through. I wish you could see it rain and blow even now. We have some pretty hard rains and blows on our old corner at 297 but nothing in it with what is going on now.

We have been issued woolen underwear and are to be fitted out in o.d. coat and pants tomorrow. I hope Bert enjoyed his trip to Maine. It is said that we are to go home by way of New Orleans and up the east bank of the Miss river which will be some trip. I don’t know what they are going to do with us when they get us to Mass., and I don’t know as I care much. Well Em its all over but the cheering I guess, so Im saying. Let er rain. (To Tipperary, → Farewell to dry old Texas, Farewell El Paso, It’s a long long way to Massachusetts, But believe me we’ll go.)

Here we are back here again to day, and if we are not in Boston soon I will be very much dissapointed. They held us up at Las Cruces N.M. one day and the night of that day we got orders to be ready early this morning to start hiking back to El Paso. We did 12-13 miles to day and are camping (for tonight) on the very same spot as we occupied the 7th. Gee my face is burning from the sun and I suppose tonight I will be almost frozen. Beleive me if they would let us have our way we wouldn’t stop until we struck C. Cotton again. It will take us three or four more days to get there I guess, so when you get this you will know that we are getting ready to “Hit the trail for Boston” instead of Villa. I am receiving all the cards you are sending including Bert’s. I feel as strong as an ox now and the Lord only know how Ill feel when I get an honest to God bath. XXXXXXXXXXX for Mary.

I sent one of you a card last night, and while writing I was so tierd I hardly knew what or who I was writing to. I was not in camp 5 minutes before I was off for the town for some thing to eat. I had about a dollar for about ten minutes. We tryed to get a feed in the only cheap resturant in the Town, but oh what a chance. The door was jamed and thinking that there would be more room later we waited. We went back in about ten minutes and they didn’t have even a slice of bread or a cup of coffee left. Sold out. We then got into a bakery shop some how and I bought two jelly rolls for my pal and I. They were ten cents apiece and there was just about one mouth full in it. We then bought some cakes and tonic.

The town is completely gaurded, no inlisted man being able to even look inside a bar room. We crawled back to camp at taps and I bathed my sore and aching feet. Today Im feeling fine again, ready for any thing they say.

After hiking about 10-11 miles yesterday we made camp in (this mans town) as Al would say. Every man in the company was as fresh as a daisy including yours truly. We had quit a shower and out side of our little pup tents blowing down two or three times and our blankets getting a little wet we enjoyed the nights rest very good. I bet Ill be able to sleep comfortably on a row of tacks after this hike.

Shelter Tents from Military Instructors Manual, 1917

It seems as though every thing you touch is filled with thorns. It is very windy this morning and we are all ready and anxious to get started and get the benefit of the cool part of the day. We will be in Las Crusas soon. Every one is happy and well.

Well here we are after a days rest, waiting for the word that will start this army on the move again. We expect a forced march today to make up for yesterday. Some of the mules are dieing and a lot of the men are in pretty bad shape for hiking. I am as usual feeling great, and Im anxious for the order to start.

We went swimming in the Rio Grande yesterday, and I bet we walked about six miles to and from the river. I dont beleive we are any cleaner for our wash for it is the muddiest water in any river there is I guess.